Post Your Favorite "Why the Market Turned" Story Here

As I frequently say, providing live commentary on market moves is sort of like reporting on Brownian motion in a coffee cup — but that doesn’t prevent people (including me) from doing it and often making unfalsifiable statements.

Case in point: today. The major U.S. markets turned and tumbled at 2pm, going from record highs to a loss of around 100 points. So, why’d it happen? I was pinged by a number of people asking (and others answering), so I’ll just repeat a few:

A popular ETF sold off at 2pm, and that took things down

JP Morgan made negative comments on Baidu

Selling programs (a personal favorite of mine)

Comments from European Central Bank president Axel Weber, who said that Eurozone rates might have to rise

An unnamed hedge fund was on the brink of closing (a perennial favorite)

Investors realized that while Wal-mart was reporting good numbers, most of retail wasn’t

Technology “profit-taking” (a blast from the past)

No-one cited Alan Greenspan, which was a Feel free to add more Popper-piquing excuses below.

One of my co-workers who day trades loves to explain incremental moves in a company’s stock price during the day with phrases like “profit-taking.” Cracks me up. I can always imagine Nassim Taleb sputtering with anger every time he says something like that.